Top 35 Nipsey Russell Quotes

Real progress will have been made when people don’t care or even notice the color of a comedian when they’ll just be concerned with whether he’s funny.

Some college athletes don’t want to turn pro, they don’t want to take the cut in pay.

I used to say, ‘We’ve always had integration in the South… we just want it now in the daytime.

I knew racial discrimination at its worst in the 1930s. I lived with the humility of it but I never lost my sense of humor. Humor is the escape valve from the deadly reality of adversity.

For artistic fulfillment I prefer to work live. For career advancement, I go to the media.

I don’t want to get in a one-character rut.

Many times good actors I have known in New York accept series. I tune in at the beginning of the new season and think ‘He’s really working.’ But six months later, if I tune in again, the actor is on a treadmill, grinding it out as best he can, and he can’t help it.

Jack Paar was my first TV patron saint.

If you see me on the street, don’t just say, ‘There goes Nipsey.’ Walk over and say, ‘Hello Nipsey,’ and give me a warm slap on the back and hand me a few dollars.

There’s no money in television, but TV provides the wherewithal to get the dollars for live performances.

My only mission is to look for fun, the lighter side of life. I spell it fool-osophy.

My exercise is pall-bearin’ for athletes and food faddists.

I was so scared the first time I flew the flight attendant called me Whitey.

Divorces are getting so common that a woman I know doesn’t bother getting a new marriage license. They just punch her old one and give her a transfer. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks – so she keeps changing dogs.

As far as television is concerned, I’m just not interested in working on a series. Why should I settle for being someone‘s second banana? And that weekly grind is unrewarding and too demanding.

Our country‘s social revolution lends itself to jokes and I use them.

New York can be any city it wants to be.

I’ve always had the ability to manipulate words and communicate ideas and thoughts.

I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes – anything that works.

Six good guest shots on top shows during one season are more than enough and any producer who wants to make me happy could offer some floating guest dates for discussion and panel shows. It’s generally agreed that I love to talk, so shows of this kind are right down my alley.

My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.

Humor is based on the way a man looks at life’s ironies, and being a member of a minority group can certainly be ironic.

Comedy is based partly on mean-spiritedness.

I don’t drink.

You see, the patience of an audience is very short, particularly with a non-entity. You’re an intruder, and you must make them laugh within three or four seconds. My poems fit the requirements, and I’m always thinking up new ones.

There aren’t any messages in my social protestations.

I began working on stage in Atlanta when I was 3, doing a dance act with the Ragamuffins of Rhythm. Later I became a juvenile straight man for the older comedians. After that I worked out a stand-up act.

I feel the life expectancy of a comedian is 30 seconds. If you don’t hook an audience in half-a-minute, you’re dead.

If the social evolution leads to jokes, I use them.

I talk too much.

The great part of appearing on game shows is that when you answer a question the camera takes a close-up of you every time. You get more close-ups than in a movie, and that’s terrific for audience identification. The people have to see you to like you.

During all the years I entertained at the Baby Grand night club in Harlem, 90 percent of the audience was white. But when I tried to break Into television, I was told that white folks wouldn’t understand what I was talking about.

In all my years in show business – on stage, clubs and TV shows – my audience has been 75 percent white. In Las Vegas and Atlantic City I look out at the crowd and only see a few black faces here and there. But I can’t allow myself to be conscious of the race factor. I couldn’t perform my best under those conditions.

Game shows are like golf and tennis are for some men. It’s not like going to work.

I haven‘t got a Cadillac. I’ve got a subway token.